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Sunday, 10 November 2013

Goosey counting today

...and seeing great birds. My area is north and east of Kirkwall and Tankerness. Really like birding on Tankerness, I should do it more often!!

Kicked off with flocks of 784 Eider and 235 Long-tailed Ducks and then it just got better. A Waxwing on west Tankerness, I was wondering where all the Velvet Scoter were as I only found 7, until i found a flock of 47 in Deer Sound and a drake Surfie with them. Also in Deer Sound was another Eider flock, this time 199. All around Tankerness there were Great Northerns, Slav Grebes, Long-tailed Ducks and a few Red-throated Divers. Other highlights were a Black-tailed Godwit and a Jack Snipe amongst two really large gatherings of wadeers. Geese were restricted to just over 5000 Greylags and 445 Pinkies, plus a weird Canada hybrid.